The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 189 (689)

It hasn't yet been peer-reviewed but a study in England showed that exposure to just one nasal droplet was enough for a person to become infected with covid. The study involved 36 healthy, young volunteers and used a viral strain before the variants we have now emerged. People developed symptoms quickly, within two days, and were most infectious five days in. Infection first appeared in the throat but spread to the nose. I find this fascinating. The researchers are planning more, similar challenge trials. As for the a single nasal droplet, well that's an argument for making sure your mask covers your nose.

Pfizer has responded to the FDA's request for data on its vaccine given to children under five. The dose for a child ages six months through four years would contain one-tenth of the dose given to adults. FDA review will start on February 15. If approved by the FDA, the CDC will review the data. If approved by the CDC, it will be up to parents as to whether their children under five are vaccinated. Infants under the age of one are the most vulnerable to severe illness in that age group. The trial data showed a strong antibody response in children between six months and two years old. Older under-fives had a lesser response. A recent survey suggested that 31 percent of parents of children under five would get them vaccinated as soon as possible. At the same time, only 22 percent of the children ages five through 11 are fully vaccinated, and only 30 percent have gotten at least one dose. It seems that two-thirds of parents not getting their children vaccinated are worried about those children having future fertility problems.

Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, is not sure that it wants tourists back after two years without them. In 2021, 245,900 tourists visited Japan, a 99.2 percent drop from pre-pandemic levels. One Kyoto resident explains, "Kyoto isn't a particularly big city, so too many foreign tourists put pressure on things like public transport. They were great for business, but it was difficult to live a normal life with so many of them milling around. Part of me really wants them back, but another part of me loves the peace and quiet." I guess every silver lining hides a cloud.

Eleven people associated with the Olympics tested positive and showed symptoms; those people are now in the hospital. None is in life-threatening condition. In the last 24 hours, nine athletes and 23 team officials have tested positive. Since January 23, there have been 232 positive tests in conjunction with the Olympics.

WHO's director is concerned about European countries relaxing restrictions even as covid case numbers are rising. He cautioned against thinking that vaccines prevent enough transmissibility that restrictions are no longer needed, saying that "nothing could be further from the truth." He went on, "More transmission means more deaths. We are not calling for any country to return to so-called lockdown. But we are calling on all countries to protect their people using every tool in the toolkit, not vaccines alone. It's premature for any country either to surrender, or to declare victory."

Those who were hoping that Omicron's being less severe would help the US look better in comparison with other large, high-income countries will be disappointed. Deaths in the US are now higher than at the peak of Delta and over two-thirds as high as last winter's pre-vaccine peaks. The US has vaccinated fewer people than other large, high-income countries and is even further behind on boosters, discovering a large segment of the population is resistant to public health precautions. 

On a totally unrelated subject, the NFL team formerly known as the Redskins and, following that, the Washington Football Team, is re-branding as the Commanders. One wonders if this has anything to do with POTUS's new puppy who just happens to be named Commander. Is Dan Snyder hoping to flatter Uncle Joe into a tax break or other benefit? Personally, I wanted the team to remain the Washington Football Team, that name being a lot cooler than "Commanders."

The View from the Hermitage, Day 329

Day 329 ... Week 47 ... Year 1? While I fully expect not to have been vaccinated once let alone twice by the one-year mark for this blog, I hope like hell I'm not still going strong this far into a second year. I do know that I won't be jumping right back out into the world even after a second dose of vaccine. I cannot, for example, envision eating out in a restaurant. I can envision going back to working as an officer of election if enough time has passed after the second shot that I feel it's had its full effect. 

Mother Nature, however, may have other ideas. South Africa has halted the rollout of the AstraZeneca covid vaccine because it has shown minimal efficacy against what's here being called the South Africa variant. Fortunately, the vaccines in use here in the US appear to work against what is called the British variant--the more contagious possibly more deadly variant--because the prevalence of that variant appears to be doubling every week and a half. 

I have been told that since The Professor and I have registered with the State Health Department as well as the regional health district folks, we'll get an email telling us when it's our turn to get vaccinated and how to make an appointment. This obviously varies from state to state and, possibly, locality to locality. I read this morning how some other countries are notifying people that it's their turn for the vaccine. Britain is apparently using a letter or phone call, while Israel is relying on text messaging. Notification in Germany varies from state to state, while India is using neighborhood lists. 

As schools locally move to increase in-person K-12 instruction, there may be a new controversy brewing. Some districts appear to be hiring "classroom monitors," to, what else, monitor classrooms in which students will sit at desks for the same virtual instruction they would get at home. They would not be going to school to be in a classroom with a teacher present and teaching. They would just be following on a screen in a classroom rather than on a screen at home.

The Super Bowl, the climax of the season, is this evening. Noteworthy is that the game was scheduled for February 7, 2021, before the pandemic happened. The National Football League, unlike the other professional sports leagues, had no games canceled due to covid. Some were delayed, but all were played. Perhaps more noteworthy is that the season did not happen in a bubble. There may have been a couple of games that were not played in the stadium they had been scheduled for due to local regulations, but only a couple. What the NFL did that other sports leagues did not do or did not do as well was to stress the public health side of the pandemic: distancing, testing, contact tracing, isolation. and so forth. League officials expected there to be cases of covid; the goal was to minimize the spread of those cases. 

The surprise to me was that there was never a case of the virus being transmitted across the line of scrimmage despite large, sweaty, huffing and puffing men crouching nose to nose. There was no transmission even in cases in which players tested positive for covid after having played in a game. The league used genetic sequencing to verify that such a player did not transmit whatever viral strain he had to someone else on the field at the same time. 

Moving on to the Capitol insurrection, researchers at the University of Chicago have been analyzing the backgrounds of the people arrested so far. The average age of arrestees is 40. Almost 90 percent have no known links to militant groups. Forty percent own their own business or work in white-collar jobs. They have one common denominator. They all support Xpot. He is the reason they were where they were on January 6. Having watched video of Xpot's remarks to the crowd that day, I view those remarks as incendiary when delivered to one's supporters. Will enough Republican Senators agree with me? Not bloody likely.

We had snow again today. I left my phone at home when we walked The Family Dog, but I took a shot of the dogwood tree out back through the dining room window.

When we reached the other cul-de-sac, the flakes were large and fluffy. Standing still, looking straight up at them as they fell was magical. I had not realized how much I missed a good snowfall. Now, eight or so hours later, most of the snow has melted. It was wonderful while it lasted, but it didn't last long enough.

I found a recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Pie in the book Son #2 gave me for Christmas, Pie Academy. It seemed like something that might go with the Instant Pot chili I'll be trying to make after I post this. The Professor's favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin, and the description of his pie was that the top was like a huge cookie. The Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Dough used for the crust was a bitch to make since I don't have a food processor. I made two batches, one using my stand mixer and the other using an immersion blender. I ended up using the immersion  blender dough. I don't know how it tastes yet, but I do know I'd never enter a pie using it in a county fair because getting it to look as good as it doesn't in the picture below was not easy.

Here's hoping I don't struggle as much with the Instant Pot chili as I did with the Flake Cream Cheese Pie Dough crust. And here's hoping both the chili and the pie are tasty.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 181

The breaking news around here, at least for a lot of people, is that the local university's traditional rivalry football game has been postponed and possibly cancelled. The rival university supposedly has "covid issues," which one source says is 600 cases. Rival is a larger university than the local one, and the local hit 276 yesterday; the 38 new cases is the highest daily number so far. If the conference has to reschedule too many games, they may just punt. I should apologize for that but spending the morning in a Zoom meeting then dealing with a homeowners' association issue this afternoon should give me license to do lame puns.

The morning Zoom meeting was with the board of the local quilt guild. As webmaster, I am not officially on the board but since each meeting generates changes I need to make to the guild website, it's easier to be there in person, though Zoom makes it in virtual person. The covid-19 pandemic continues to generate lots of changes. Cancel this, postpone that, and so on. The big thing was cancelling the biennial quilt show scheduled for April 2021. Assuming 2022 is closer to some sort of new normal, we can try again then, and just move the shows from every odd-numbered year to every even.

Refurnishing the house (from the furniture stored in younger son's bedroom or the basement) continues. We may actually be able to move out of the guest room and back into the master bedroom soon. When we can get out and go shopping, we need to get my mother a new bed. I told the husband we're getting a new mattress and box springs for the guest room. I am embarrassed to say that the bed in the guest room is one he had when we got married 35 years ago, which means it could well be 40 or more years old. The carpet tiles arrived today, too. We decided to put off putting them down until tomorrow. I'll post photos when that's done. It is interesting how nice the finished rugs look given they're made from squares.

The size of the wildfires out west is staggering. None of the people I know out there have had to evacuate ... yet. Some of the photos they've posted of orange skies look as if they're out of some fantasy movie. Dozens of people are missing. I can see how they'd be more worried about containing the fire. Not to make light of the situation, but I did read one humorous post about the fact that the number of fatalities on one location was one less than had been reported because one of the bodies was determined to have been an anatomical skeleton. I'm glad they checked and didn't accidentally give it the name of a missing person who might show up later. 

The local university's Board of Visigoths, er, Visitors met this past week. One continuing issue has been the number of buildings, monuments, and the like named after people who enslaved people or otherwise promoted white supremacy. The university does not bear his name, but it was founded by Thomas Jefferson, an owner of enslaved persons reputed to have fathered several children with one of the enslaved women. They can't take Jefferson's name off the institution (check out what's happening with Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia; the "Lee" is Robert E., Confederate general), but there is a statue of him prominently placed at one of the entryways to the university. The Visitors decided that what is needed is to "conceptualize the statue." Here's how one of the news reports put it:

The Board passed a resolution authorizing University leadership to work with historians and other experts to contextualize the statue, which stands on the north side of the Rotunda. While the resolution acknowledges the accomplishments of Jefferson as both a founding father and the founder of the University, it calls attention to his ownership of enslaved people, usage of enslaved labor to build the University and other “contradictory writings and actions.”

“The life of the founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, is a complex one,” the resolution reads. “It is apparent that crucial to improving the racial climate is to reframe the historic landscape to tell a broader story about all of those who contributed to building and operating the University over its 200 year history, including recontextualizing the monuments to its founder Thomas Jefferson.”

The BOV did not specify a timeline or further details for contextualizing the Jefferson statue.

 Your guess is as good as mine how they will end up actually doing it.

What with Zooming and wanting to get in a morning walk (made it 5 miles before I ran out of time to shower before Zooming), I did not actually read the front section of either daily paper. Maybe there will be more news worthy of comment tomorrow.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 149

 A big day, news-wise, or at least a big last half hour. The Big Ten conference has killed fall football but will try again in the spring. The Pac-12 conference heads are also meeting today and may very well do the same. I think the Atlantic Coast Conference (home of the local university) presidents meet tomorrow. Teams are dropping like flies, and I approve. Do I expect to be following college football in the spring? No, because I don't expect it will be any safer to play by then than it is now.

Let me refresh the CNN web page open in another tab. New news! Sources say that Biden has told Rep. Karen Bass that she was not the VP pick. The cynic in me says that she's not the pick because how could he run with a Karen? News flash! It's Kamala Harris, who could end up being the first female, first Black, and first Asian American vice president. Interestingly, I first really noticed Harris after one of the first Democratic debates when she pointed out to Biden that she'd been one of the black children bused in the interest of integrating public schools. I expect that HWSNBN will start flinging poo at her in this afternoon's presser.

In other news, Russia says that it has developed a working coronavirus vaccine. Is it safe? Putin claims that one of his daughters has taken it. When I read that this morning, my first cynical thought was to wonder if it was his least favorite daughter. Actually, I have no idea how many daughters Putin might have. Still on the coronavirus vaccine front, NIH Director Francis Collins says that there is no way a coronavirus vaccine will be available in pre-election October. Any vaccine said to be ready then would not have been adequately tested and would not be considered safe.

I emailed the election folks and bowed out of November's election. The Election Manager said she understood and there would be future elections at which they could use my help. In my initial email I said that once there was a reliable vaccine and treatment, I would be quite willing to return. I reported that the husband was still debating whether he would work but that I expected he would. By then he will have gone to the university multiple times, so going out to work the election would not be a huge deal. I suggested that were they to need an assistant precinct chief to replace me, the husband would be a good one.

I applied today for an absentee ballot for the November election. I can submit it by mail; it will have to be postmarked on or before November 3. I can also go to the voter registrar's office and hand it in. No one else can do that for me. I have to be the one handing over my ballot. This year there will supposedly be a tracking number that will let me verify that my ballot was received should I choose to mail it. My voting streak will be intact--I have voted in every election for which I have been eligible. Since I turned 18 in July 1974, that's quite a few. 

And for the final news update, the Pac-12 conference is also postponing all fall sports. That leaves the ACC , the Southeastern, and the Big Twelve conferences still open to playing. I expect that by Friday, there just won't be any college football in the fall, at least not from what is known as the "Power Five" conferences. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. I hope I did not just guarantee that play will, in fact, continue.